Now Reading: Govt plans BIS exemptions to boost semiconductor investment
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Govt plans BIS exemptions to boost semiconductor investment
The government is preparing a framework to exempt select equipment and components from mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced during his visit to Japan.…
The government is preparing a framework to exempt select equipment and components from mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced during his visit to Japan. The move addresses regulatory concerns raised by foreign investors, particularly Japanese companies, and aims to speed up the setting up of advanced manufacturing facilities, especially in semiconductors.
A faster exemption process for specialised machinery, gases, chemicals and components could cut delays in procurement and accelerate investments. The government has approved 13 projects under SEMICON-1, targeting about USD 19 billion in investments, with another USD 15 billion committed under SEMICON-2, hoping to catalyse overall investments of about USD 50 billion across the sector.
Goyal is leading a delegation of over 220 Indian industry representatives in Japan from August 24 to 27. India aims to double the presence of Japanese companies from around 1,500 and attract 10 trillion yen in Japanese investment over the next decade. The proposed BIS exemption framework is expected to remove bottlenecks for high-tech manufacturing.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The BIS exemption framework targets a long-standing investor grievance: that mandatory Indian standards, designed for consumer goods, slow down high-tech projects reliant on specialised imported equipment that has no domestic substitute. India's semiconductor push has so far focused on production-linked incentives, but regulatory friction has been a silent barrier. Under the 2016 BIS Act, the government can already exempt strategic sectors, this proposal would codify that for semiconductors, chemicals and capital goods. The real test is implementation speed and whether the exemption covers the entire supply chain of a single plant. The industry will watch for the first project to use the framework and the time saved in months.
Japanese companies like Suzuki and Toyota have long demanded regulatory predictability.
Source: indiatoday.in
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
